Health care in the United States is expensive, confusing, and increasingly difficult for patients to navigate. Prices are hidden, bills arrive long after care is delivered, and even well-insured patients often cannot explain what they are paying for or why. Reform debates usually offer a false choice: centralized control on one side, or vague promises of deregulation on the other. A Path to Free-Market Health Care offers a different approach—one grounded in practical design, patient experience, and a realistic transition from the system we have today. This book explains how health care can function within a free-market framework without abandoning access, continuity, or compassion. It shows how insurance can be returned to its proper role of protecting against major financial risk, rather than acting as a prepaid plan for routine care. It introduces the concept of a patient-controlled health wallet that replaces surprise bills with clear, upfront decisions. It explains how real price transparency—based on enforceable prices and bundled services—can reduce costs while making care easier to understand. Rather than treating patients as passive recipients of rules and bills, the reforms described in this book put patients back at the center. Navigation becomes simpler. Chronic care becomes predictable instead of fragmented. Hospitals and outpatient providers compete openly based on price and outcomes. Prescription drug costs become visible rather than buried in hidden layers of intermediaries. A redesigned safety net guarantees access while preserving individual choice and dignity. Crucially, this book does not rely on disruption or mandates. It lays out a seamless transition that allows the new system to operate alongside the existing one for years, giving patients, employers, providers, and public programs the freedom to opt in gradually. Reform becomes something people choose because it works better, not something imposed through political force. Written in clear, accessible language, A Path to Free-Market Health Care focuses on mechanisms rather than slogans. It addresses the hardest questions directly: Can costs really fall—possibly by half? How do you protect the sick and poor without centralized control? How do you change incentives without creating chaos? The answers are practical, transparent, and grounded in how real systems function. This book is for readers who want health care reform that improves the patient experience, lowers costs without rationing, and builds political support through choice and clarity rather than fear. It offers not a utopian blueprint, but a credible path forward—one that treats patients as capable decision-makers and restores accountability to a system that has lost it.